Search results
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[FOUNDLING HOSPITAL.]
Psalms, Hymns & Anthems used in the Chapel of the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of exposed &...
[London], 1774 [but c. 1780?]
The Foundling Hospital was established by Thomas Coram in 1739 as Britain’s first charity for the care of orphaned or abandoned children. ‘The Hospital chapel, in use by 1749 and officially opened in 1753, soon became well known for its music as well as for its elegant architecture and adornments’...
£750
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FREZZA DALLE GROTTE, Gioseppe.
Il Cantore ecclesiastico breve, facile, ed essatta notizia del canto fermo per istruzzione de’...
Padua, Stamperia del Seminario (Giovanni Manetti), 1698.
First edition of an uncommon plainchant manual published for the use of the Minorites (Conventual Franciscans). The two striking woodcuts depict a book of plainchant on a cantor’s lectern, and the famous Guidonian hand, a medieval mnemonic device to assist with sight-singing,
£1250
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GAY, John.
The Beggar’s Opera … The third Edition: with the Ouverture in Score, the Songs, and the Basses … compos’d by...
London: John Watts, 1729.
Third (and only quarto) edition of The Beggar’s Opera, printed in this format to match the first edition of the sequel Polly. Though Gay’s lasting fame rests on The Beggar’s Opera, in his own time it was sustained by his much reprinted Fables, here found in the first...
£750
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GREENE, Maurice.
Forty select Anthems in Score composed for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 Voices … Volume first [–second].
London. J. Walsh, 1743.
First edition. Greene was organist and composer to the Chapels Royal, and an admirer and sometime friend of Handel (their friendship expiring on the occasion of Handel’s quarrel with Buononcini). Forty Select Anthems, setting Psalms and other Biblical texts, is ‘the work on which his reputation...
£850
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[HEIDEGGER, John Jacob, arr. CONTI, Francesco, et al.]
Songs in the new Opera, call’d Clotilda. The Songs done in Italian...
[London] Sold by J: Walsh … & P. Randall … and I. Hare. [1709].
First editions of three works from the first years of the Italian Opera at the Queen’s Theatre in Haymarket, including the first two fully Italian operas on the London stage. The theatre had opened in 1705 with a very rocky first season, and was turned over to the performance of opera alone...
£2750
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HOBLER, J[ohn] Paul (compiler).
The Words of the favourite Pieces as performed at the Glee Club held at the Crown and Anchor...
London, Printed for the Editor. Sold by H. D. Symonds … 1794 [–1800].
Very rare enlarged edition, adding an ‘Appendix’ (pp. 85–114), with the words to 45 new songs; the final page of the index is a cancel, adding the new contents. ESTC records only the original printing of 1794 (paginated [4], 85, [7]). An inscription here dates the Appendix, printed by Smeeton,...
£500
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[MAGDALEN CHAPEL.]
The Hymns, Anthems & Tunes with the Ode used at the Magdalen Chapel set for the Organ, Harpsichord, Voice, German-Flute,...
London, Printed for C. and S. Thompson … [1770?]
First edition thus, very rare, of this Magdalen Chapel Hymnbook, with a total of thirty-eight tunes: twenty-four hymns, three anthems, nine psalms, ‘The Wish’ and ‘The Ode’.
£1750
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MALCOLM, Alexander.
A Treatise of Musick, speculative, practical and historical. Containing an explication of the philosophical...
London, J. Osborn and T. Longman, F. Fayram, and E. Symon, 1730.
First London edition of the first history of music in English by a British author; it is a reissue of the Edinburgh-printed first edition of 1721 with a cancel title-page and the dedication removed.
£1100
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[ADOLPHUS, Prince, later Duke of Cambridge.]
Manuscript collection of fifty-four songs in Italian, French and German.
[Hanover?, 1796.]
The seventh son of George III and Queen Charlotte, Prince Adolphus (1774–1850), was born in London, but in 1786 was sent alongside his two brothers Ernest and Augustus to be educated in Göttingen, then followed a military career, with successive positions in both the Hanoverian and the British armies....
£2850
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[MENESTRIER, Claude François.]
Des representations en musique anciennes et modernes.
Paris, René Guignard, 1681.
First edition. A Jesuit professor at Lyons and later Paris, Menestrier developed ‘a special interest in the history and organization of public festivals and ceremonies’. He devised ballets for the visit of Louis XIV to Lyons in 1658 and published a series of works on the subject. ‘The four...
£600
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MOZART, et al.
A volume of twelve piano duets adapted from overtures by Mozart, Rossini, and others by J. F. Burrowes, J. Mazzinghi,...
London, mostly Birchall & Co., 1810s–1820s.
A good collection of late Georgian piano duets, including adaptations from The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, La Clemenza di Tito, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia, along with a few original compostions by Dussek, Mazzinghi, etc. A full list is available...
£350
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[CHANSONS.]
Manuscript collection of arias, chansons, and romances, including pieces by Bianchi, Bruni, Paisiello, Beauvarlet-Charpentier...
c. 1795.
A fascinating manuscript collection of French songs, both operatic and popular, compiled in the years after the Thermidorean Reaction and the execution of Robespierre.
£2400
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RECUEIL DE QUADRILLES
pour le Piano.
[France, 1840s?]
A delightful album, evidently produced as a gift, collecting 17 popular dances arranged for the piano, each with a different decorative title-page. Composers whose work is featured include Philippe Musard (1792–1859), one of the most famous musicians in Europe in the 1830s and ’40s, ‘the doyen...
£850
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PLAYFORD, John.
Psalms & Hymns in solemn Musick of foure Parts on the common Tunes to the Psalms in Metre: used in Parish-Churches....
London, Printed by W. Godbid for J. Playford, at his Shop … 1671.
First edition of the first harmonised Psalter after the Restoration, a landmark work in the re-introduction of part-singing into churches.
£1850
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POLLINI, Francesco.
Preludio cantabile e rondo per piano forte composti e dedicati al sigr W. A. Mozart, figlio … Opera 44.
Milan, Ferdinando Artaria, [1821].
First edition, rare, of a work for solo piano dedicated to Mozart’s youngest son Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart. Born to a Venetian family in Ljubljana, now Slovenia, Pollini (1762–1846) lived in Vienna from 1783 to 1790; he was the dedicatee of two pieces by Mozart and sang the role of Idamante...
£350
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[PRELLEUR, Peter.]
The Compleat Tutor for the Harpsichord or Spinnet wherein is shewn the Italian Manner of Fingering with suits...
London, Peter Thompson, musical instrument maker [1755?]
First edition thus?, an abridgment of part 6 of Prelleur’s Modern Musick-Master (1731) but with different musical examples. The examples, printed on pp. 5–32, include popular tunes and dances alongside pieces adapted from Handel and Corelli.
£1250
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RINUCCINI, Ottavio.
La Dafne, nuovamente stampata in occasione delle felicissime nozze del signor marchese Pier Francesco Rinuccini,...
Florence, Borgognissanti, 1810.
Scarce edition of Rinuccini’s Dafne, the first printed opera libretto; a rare survival preserved unbound in folded sheets.
£650
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AESOP.
[DODSLEY, Robert.] Select Fables of Esop and other Fabulists. In three Books …
Birmingham, Printed by John Baskerville, for R. and J. Dodsley … 1764.
An extremely attractive emblematic binding by Hanway’s second binder, inscribed by Hanway ‘For Master James Ord from his most affectionate Servant & friend / J Hanway / 10 June 1765’, and with a two-page ‘Explanation of the Binding’ in prose and verse:
£3250
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HOFMANNSTHAL, Hugo von.
Die Aegyptische Helena. Oper in zwei Aufzügen.
[Leipzig, Mainzer Presse for Insel-Verlag, 1928.]
First edition of Hofmannsthal’s text for Richard Strauss’s opera – Hofmannsthal himself considered it to be his finest libretto. The opera was first performed on 6 June 1928 in Dresden, five weeks before Hofmannsthal’s death. The plot is a free adaptation of Euripides’ Helena, which introduces...
£750
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CHEVALIER, André-Joseph, professor; A.J. BERENTS, compiler.
‘Tractatus De Fide, Spe et Charitate Dictatus ab...
[Douai, 9 March – 4 August] 1787.
A manuscript treatise concerning the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity as expounded in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae, compiled by a student at the University of Douai from lectures by André-Joseph Chevalier.
£375